Watching for Long Tom.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 143, 6 August 1872, Page 7

Watching for Long Tom.

There is no generic sobriquet for a digger. •Tack stands ior shellback or sailor, all the world over. We aifeoi. to despise the (Jhinama.i, and perhaps it is with a satire of which we are unconscious that we dub the heathens ‘ ‘ John.” That great nautical lyrist, Dibdin, has it that A sweet little cherub that sits up aloft Keeps watch o’er the life of poor Jack. But is there a figure of any form that keeps watch for the Digger ? The answer is, rather! No one was ever so well watched as Long Tom. He is looked well after, he is. The week may hang slack, but Tom is in the tunnel and in the shaft, before the face and in the drive, and o\cr the sluice-box. The tools will keep up the polish on his horny palms ; you can bet on that. He’ll count.. 14 in” again, pound your life on it. The cherubs will not sit up in vain. Now there be cherubs and cherubs. The proprietor or the proprietress of the shanty on the way in, is one of Tom’s cherubs, and it is a remarkable feature in Tom’s cherubs that they are not at all particular where they sit. Aloft or below, it is all the same to them. The man who has got the house “just outside,” and who having got too lazy to work, paints his name over his door and calls it an hotel of some name that announces himself as a countryman of, if not | of Tom, of some of his mates, is watching for | him. So is the tobacconist. So is the soft I goods man, who imports flannels expressly ! for the climate. This of course is legitimate. * So are the syrens who decorate their shops I with green arsenical paper, although they 1 have n m ht to dispose of but empty cigar j boxes. Yes ; there are lots of cherubs wait- | lug. The pub who daubs his front afresh, j and in his anxiety to forestall the possibility" j of being recognised with a clean face, notifies that although his appearance is changed the old welcome still remains; is still watching for Tom. So is the young lady behind the bar. The glittering drops in her ears and that massive brooch on her bosom were presents from Tom, for Tom is not a bad sort when 1e is properly killed. So is the hilliarduuuker, lest Tom should get drowned in the “Devil’s Pool.” So is the man hi blue, of | whom Tom politelyinquires, as far as hiccough j and liquor will allow, to be informed of his j own address, and who, with a “goon, there,” a shove, a push, and perhaps a trip, makes ; Tom drunk, disorderly, and assailing, before Tom knows anything about either one of the three. However, another boy in blue is waiting for Tom. So is the Magistrate next morning ; he is something like a cherub, he is indeed. He is the final cherub, and Tom automically pays the damage, or if stuck, his mates see him through it. But there is another cherub sits up for Tom ; it sits up aloft, aye, very high, so high that it is beyond ! the reach of very many Toms ; yet Tom, in ; his toiling, in his hard prosecuted search f< r j future comfort and leisure, is working up to the cherub aloft.